For everyone who is anxiously waiting for the new screencasts to get posted, you will have to wait 2 more weeks. Along with some silverlight publishing issues that I have been running into (for the last 2 screencasts) we have been on a little family trip. Being that the budget is tight, we decided to drive all the way from Cypress County,AB to Miami Florida. The journey itself was amazing. Our kids are fantastic road warriors which has been a huge blessing. Once in Miami, we flew to Dominican Republic (where we currently are) to have a week of vacation followed by a week of work.

Aside from a few days of rain the trip so far has been incredibly memorable. The other day we all went jetting around the landscape in Dune Buggies, this trip culminated in us swimming in a cave and tasting pure chocolate and coffee. Most of these events were firsts for our family and are something all of us will remember forever. It was awesome for the kids to be able to see how the farming community around here lives!!

I am sure I will do a screencast on the topic if people are interested, otherwise thank you for waiting patiently for the screencasts.

On a side note, if anyone has experience publishing ScreenFlow based screencasts as Silverlight videos to the Azure cloud, please get in contact with me as I could use some advice!!

Develop With Passion!!

As someone who loves to leverage mouseless computing as often as possible, I thought I would take the time to share a screencast introducing one of the may tools that I use to "go mouseless".

This screencast is a gentle introduction to the basics of vimperator; which is a plug-in for Firefox that allows you to browse the web without the constraints of a mouse!!

This is one of the first times that I have recorded a screencast in Camtasia and not recorded directly to avi. This allowed me the option to do some post production (very minor). I would appreciate any feedback you would be willing to give on the technical aspects of the video:

-Video Quality
-Lighting
-Sound
-....

I had a lot of fun making this screencast and am looking forward to producing many more videos over the course of the year. I can't promise that they will all be technical, but I hope you will find a handful of them informative!!

As you can see from the format of the screencast, I am typing along as I am walking through the features. This is my preferred style of delivery. The only thing that I omitted from this screencast is to have the keys that I am typing being displayed. Please feel free to let me know if you would like the keys to be displayed for successive screencasts.

Develop With Passion

At our church this year, the theme for the duration of the year is The Year Of Purpose!!

The realization and fulfillment of purpose is something that is very near and dear to my heart. When I was in my late teens, my thoughts were not directed towards what I should or could be doing with my life. Getting thrust into the role of a husband and father at a young age was one of the  catalysts that put me on the path to focusing on what I should be doing with my life. And more importantly, how I could use my life and vocation to be able to share Jesus with others.

We can all have periods where we feel like we lose our way a little. We can wake up and ask ourselves "Why am I here, what am I doing"? For as much as I love software development, I am far more blessed by being able to take part in the opportunity to help someone get a clearer vision of the "Why and what".

Since it is the year of purpose, I am going to offer a copy of the amazing book "The Purpose Driven Life" to the first 5 people who email me at jp@jpboodhoo.com.

Develop With Passion!!

One of the great things about being able to teach people from all over the world is the amazing tricks and techniques that you can pick up that can improve all aspects of your life (not just the dev realm).

Being the ever aspiring keyboard ninja, last July I picked up an autohotkey script from Rob Henry. Rob is a vim wizard. Having a year of vim under my belt, I was always on the look out for people who could teach me how to use it more proficiently. One of the things you "will" experience if you ever take the time to learn vim is that you will quickly miss some of its basic navigation features in lots of you other programs. One of the biggest things that I missed in all of my applications was not being able to use vim style navigation to get around, instead having to resort to the use of the arrow keys.

As soon as I started using vim I wrote a quick autohotkey script that would allow me to remap my caps key to escape. During the course in July, Rob made a great observation - "What a waste of a perfectly good control key". He promptly showed me an autohotkey script he had written to use the caps key as another control key that could be used to simulate simple vim style navigation anywhere in windows.

What does this mean? It means I pretty much never need to use the arrow keys!! That's right, being the home row nut that I am, this allowed me to cut out the flight to the arrow keys. This is especially significant for me when using tools like R#!!
Unfortunately, there was a slight problem with the autohotkey script (actually its not the script). When running VMWare Fusion on a Mac, the use of the Caps Lock keycode could not be combined with another keycode to accomplish what I wanted. I wrote a second version of Robs script that remapped my Caps Lock to the LWIN key. This means that when I hit my Caps lock key on its own, the windows menu pops up.

Of course, I am rarely hitting the caps lock key on its own, I am usually hitting it in conjunction with one or more other keys to save my hands the flight path. Here are a couple of examples of some combinations and what they simulate:

CAPS + E - Esc
CAPS + J - Down Arrow
CAPS + K - Up Arrow
CAPS + L - Right Arrow
CAPS + H - Left Arrow
CAPS + F - Cycle forward through task switcher apps
CAPS + D - Cycle backward through task switcher apps

One of the switches that I needed to make adjusting to this new scheme was to make sure that I was actually hitting CAPS in conjunction with another key as not to have the windows launcher pop up. I also realized that because I had previously only used the CAPS lock to get back into command mode in Vim, my pinky was not used to being stretched that far all the time. I know, I know, you are thinking to yourself that it is not that far at all, but the muscle memory in that finger was not used to using it so heavily at all, so after the first week, the left side of my hand was sore from the stretch. After the 2nd week it was totally normal.

As well as Robs script, I have updated a whole bunch of my resharper autohotkey scripts so that I can use the caps lock key to pull off some resharper goodness. I can't even remember what the "default shortcuts" are anymore, I have heavily customized those scripts for the way that I work and the way that I use the keyboard.

Download the zip containing the files here.

Develop With Passion!!!

It's has officially begun!!

The first public (in person) Nothin But .Net course of 2010 is scheduled for April 26-30. The course is going to be held at the amazing West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Just like last year, the course will be able to accommodate a maximum of 16 people. Last year there was a course held at the same location and it was an absolute blast.

If you have been on the fence about taking the course, I hope this is the year that you decide to step up to the plate!!

If you do happen to sign up, get yourself ready for a week of coding madness. You will most likely leave the week feeling both physically and mentally exhausted. The net result in the aftermath, can be a new outlook on the way you approach your job, skill set, and life in general.

You can register for the course here: http://nbdnedmonton2010.eventbrite.com/

Are you ready to Develop With Passion in 2010!!

This is a quick post to let people know that Nothin But .Net will be making its way around the world once again this year. We are still finalizing the final course schedule which takes a bit of time due to securing venues. Unlike last year, we are going to make sure that once the course schedule is published, that people will know immediately the venue it is going to be hosted at.

For the 2010 year the public courses are going to be in the following countries:

• Australia
• Canada
• England
• USA (yes, visa issues have been sorted out!!)
  

We expect to have the finalized schedule out by the end of February, with the first course happening in late April/early May.

One of the major changes that is taking place this year is with respect to the course hours. Past courses have been known for their extremely long days. For the 2010 year the course hours are going to be fixed at 8AM to 9PM. The last course of 2009 was able to closely adhere to this schedule and personally I feel it is much more maintainable than what some previous classes have had to deal with!!

Are you not able to make it out to a public course? Consider the option of bringing me on site to train your team privately. If this is something that may be of interest please contact me directly at jp@jpboodhoo.com.

I look forward to seeing and meeting many new people this year who are looking forward to Develop With Passion!!

After a lot of thought about what it would be like to run an NBDN course remotely. I thought that I would just give it a try with a small pilot/beta test group and see what the resulting reception is.

To that end. I am planning to run a live meeting based NBDN course in February. This will be a one time only offer of $1000 for people to attend the week long course. If the course proves successful, future iterations will not be held at that price.

The basic requirements are as follows:

- High speed internet connection
- Telephone that can be available for the conference calling session (for the entire day)
- Computer with the necessary software installed (described in the prep material)

With respect to the format of the course, I am hoping that it will feel much like the on-site courses. There will be no difference in the material that is covered, just the delivery mechanism. Plan on having days go from 8AM to 9PM (with appropriate time taken for breaks).

Of course, if there is not enough interest in this type of course then it just won't happen. The maximum number of people that I am allowing into this pilot group is 10.

For more information and to register please see the following: http://nbdnremote.eventbrite.com/

Develop With Passion!!

This is just a quick post to shed some light on what has transpired in my life over the last (almost 2 years). By most peoples standards of what constitutes a trial, this is extremely tame. For me however, it is an experience that has deeply affected me, and left me a changed person. A person, I am pleased to say, that is looking forward with excitement to what God lays before me next.

I want to say thank you to all of the people who contacted me to share their concern.

To save you a really long and drawn out story, all I am going to say is that something happened almost 2 years ago that woke me out of a place I had been for the entirety of my career prior to that point. That place was the place where a raging workaholic had been dwelling. One of the things that I realized, playing back the years through my head, was that at many points people close to me (my amazing wife, friends, family) were telling me that I had no notion of balance. In that place, I had convinced myself that I knew what balance was and that I was somehow achieving it. I was not able to hear them, or even reflect on my own work habits. The wisdom of their advice was drowned out by my own relentless ambition. A pursuit that now I see blinded me to the reality of how I was living my life. I understood the value of balance, and that people should focus on work when it's time to focus on work, and focus on family when it was time to focus on family. I would often speak to people about this as I believed I had it figured out. The reality is that my focus was first and foremost on that of my career.

To wake up one day and decide to make a conscious change to cut out a part of my personality that has been with me for the last 8 years (I have worked as a software developer since 2000) is something that caused a large ripple effect. It was difficult. Part of the difficulty, was the cold-turkey aspect of how I changed my behavior. It's a hard pill to swallow, when you think you have been living a certain way and you are hit with he harsh realization that you were just kidding yourself. I just kept replaying in my head the crappy decisions I had made. The amount of time I had lost with family and friends. I became my own worst enemy for a while there.

I am sure that when people read my last post, many were expecting something like me talking about losing a family member, or the realization of some awful illness. Those things are devastating and my heart goes out to anyone who is experiencing either of those right now. Each situation, and event affects people differently. This last year and a half proved to be quite challenging for me personally. I had to reinvent myself and figure out who I was in this new mindset. To that end, it has also been one of the most rewarding years of my life from a pure family and personal perspective.

An amazing friend told me a couple of weeks ago (I'm paraphrasing as I can't remember exactly): "When you pray to God for wisdom, prepare for the wisdom to come in the form of a painful, and challenging lesson"!! The lesson has been humbling, painful, and ultimately life-changing.

Going forward I want to use the programming skills I have to share and teach people. I also want to make sure that I take opportunities to share this story with other people who may be able to receive it in a way that can be practical for them.

Yours Humbled,

Jean-Paul S. Boodhoo

Develop With Passion

Sometimes things are going to happen in your life that will completely turn your world upside down. During these times it can be very easy to sink to very low places and convince yourself that there is no getting up from here.

In that mindset, you can see the steps that you have to take to improve your situation, and yet you can easily convince yourself that you are powerless to take that step.  In that place it can be very easy to succumb to feelings (which often lead us astray).

No matter how long you stay in the valley (and sometimes it can be for quite a while), at one point or another you are going to have to make the choice to start making the long walk out. The journey ahead can often look really long, and sometimes impossible. For myself, even knowing I have Jesus with me, and knowing the truth about what steps I need to take to get out of this valley, my human spirit can still contest this and leave me in a place where I am still fumbling. At one point or other you have to commit to taking that first step, and after that you take another step.

Even after you start walking forward again, don't be surprised if you sometimes fall back a couple of steps and sit there for a bit to contemplate what is going on. What matters is that you find the strength to once again start walking ahead. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other. Start making the choice to not succumb to the feelings that are paralyzing you. One day at a time, one choice at a time, eventually you will see the horizon again and recommence stepping forward into your future!

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus

Philippians 3:12-14